Rage on Zero-Covid policy may prompt crackdown

Constant rage against Chinese authorities among locals against zero-covid policy may lead to a crackdown in the country by Xi Jinping as things have changed dramatically in China since the last time protests against the central government occurred in so many places at the same time in students in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, said John Pomfret who was the bureau chief of The Washington Post in China from 1997-2003.
Describing his experience of the era of China back then, Pomfret said that he was also in China a decade later, on 25th April, 1999, when tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners surrounded the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing and staged a peaceful sit-in protest, The Washington Post reported. China’s internal security apparatus monitors hundreds of millions of artificial-intelligence-enabled public cameras across the country, with a budget that exceeds that of the military. Armies of human and algorithmic censors can access smartphone apps used by Chinese citizens to communicate, travel, and buy necessities.
Chinese police have also used billions of dollars in anti-riot equipment that was not available to security forces in 1989, and which provides coercive suppression without opening fire on crowds. Less than three months after Xi Jinping secured his historic third term as the Chinese leader at the 20th National Congress, the “Blank Paper Revolution” over the zero Covid policy, has hit the second-largest economy in the country.
Writing for the InsideOver publication, columnist Federico Giuliani argued that the Chinese President is facing an unprecedented crisis.
China has faced widespread criticism over the latest crack-down on demonstrations held against stringent Covid policies deployed by the government since the start of the pandemic.
Over the weekend, thousands of people in Shanghai began publicly protesting the government’s strict Covid-19 measures .